Abstract
This ambitious study seeks to provide a maritime history of the civil wars in the British Isles, a surprisingly neglected aspect of the political crisis and conflict of the 1640s and early 1650s. As the authors point out, while the role of the navy is customarily acknowledged, the wider strategic significance of seaborne hostilities is rarely examined in depth, and is usually dismissed as being of limited value. The relationship between naval and private maritime enterprise, which flourished during these years, has also failed to attract much interest, despite its political and military implications. Although work has been done on aspects of the war at sea, the only book length treatment was published more than sixty years ago and has long been out of print. The subject is thus ripe for fresh study and re-evaluation. Drawing on their own research as well as the work of others, Richard Blakemore and Elaine Murphy seek to provide an overview of the war for students and scholars, locating the conflict within a broader framework of maritime and naval development. It aims to examine the impact of seaborne enterprise on the civil wars, and its consequences for naval and imperial change. As such it begins with a helpful, if rapid, survey of maritime warfare during the early modern period, emphasising the prevalence of violence in various guises, which exploited the interplay between state and private enterprise. This hybrid form of warfare at sea was overshadowed by the maritime dimension to the ‘military revolution’, but the authors stress the gradual nature of change, delineating developments in tactical thinking and ideas regarding maritime sovereignty. While challenging the conventional narrative of naval decline under the early Stuart monarchy, they note that Charles I’s sea policies were divisive and failed to address serious problems. This may explain the royal navy’s support for parliament in July 1642 which robbed the king of his fleet, with far-reaching consequences for the development of the conflict at sea. The authors make valuable use of seamen’s petitions and pamphlets to argue that this was not just a reaction to pay and conditions in royal service. It was also part of a radical response to political breakdown, manifest in the role seafarers played in riots and popular protest in London.
The navy’s decision, though by no means unanimous, left the king at a serious disadvantage. In a wide-ranging chapter, covering the war at sea from 1642 to 1646, the authors argue that the imbalance in naval power was, to some degree, compensated by the royalist’s reliance on privateering. Consequently the war developed in a complex and multi-layered manner, entangling public and private enterprise in a succession of actions that were essentially regional in focus. It is an important insight which sheds light on the strengths and weaknesses of royalist maritime activity. The licensing of private adventurers, including captains sent out by the Confederate Catholics in Ireland, severely disrupted commercial networks and shipping. But much of their impressive haul of plunder was retained, and presumably shared out in a customary manner between promoters, ship-owners and companies. It did little to alleviate the royalist’s perennial shortage of money. Nonetheless the existence of widespread bases for privateering, ranging across the Irish Sea, compelled parliament to rely heavily on the navy. As the authors demonstrate, fleets were employed in various actions, including siege and other combined operations, and the transportation of soldiers and supplies. During campaigns in South West England, for example, the navy was ‘pivotally important to the course of the land war’ (p. 85). Despite longstanding difficulties in controlling private forces at sea, parliament faced resourceful and experienced opponents.
The structure, use and character of Parliament’s navy and royalist forces are examined in greater detail in successive chapters. In terms of administration and regulation, parliament tended to modify existing practices and institutions, rather than create new ones. However the authors argue that in the appointment of ‘new men’ to the position of captain, it seems to have engineered a ‘social revolution’ of sorts (pp. 95, 98). It is a rather inconclusive interpretation which does not include other officers or mariners. While parliament’s reliance on impressment suggests that seafarers’ loyalty was neither consistent nor universal, there is evidence to support the argument that it was linked to a political or ideological perspective. As a result the impressive mobilisation of naval resources by parliament supported and reinforced the land war, and provided defence against the possibility of invasion by royalist supporters. Of equal, if not greater importance, the navy was deployed to protect trade and shipping, and the revenue from customs duties. By contrast the royalists were compelled to rely on a peculiar mix of vessels purchased overseas, hired from loyal merchants, or taken as prize at sea, in addition to the use of privateering forces based in Ireland, Scotland and loyal havens in England and Wales. The authors provide an informative discussion of the role of private enterprise at sea, concluding that, despite the extensive damage inflicted on shipping, in the longer term it was ill-equipped to present a serious challenge to parliament’s navy. But the renewal of the civil war was followed by the desertion of part of the fleet to the royalist cause, leaving the remainder to face the persistent problem of Irish predators. This study provides a detailed discussion of the mutiny of 1648 and its wider political ramifications, which takes issue with historians who have discounted its impact on the outcome of the war. Blakemore and Murphy argue that the royalist leadership missed an opportunity, with profound and swift consequences. Yet the execution of the king and the establishment of a republican regime failed to end maritime hostilities. In combating the threat of a royalist force, under Prince Rupert, based for a time in Ireland, the republic invested in consolidating and enlarging the navy. Carefully linking its deployment with Cromwell’s actions on land, the final chapter of this study focuses on the complex use of the navy and other maritime forces. By this stage the authors argue that the navy had demonstrated its growing capability in domestic and distant waters, while noting that progress was uneven and not sustained.
Richard Blakemore and Elaine Murphy have provided an excellent survey and analysis of the maritime dimension to the British civil wars. They clearly demonstrate the significance and impact of the sea conflict, and break new ground in linking it closely to the land war. Although their discussion of the wider consequences of the conflict, particularly for imperial development, is compressed, they convincingly demonstrate that it was neither peripheral nor limited in effect. Based on wide-ranging research and informed by serious engagement with previous work on the subject, this study will be of particular interest to historians of naval and seaborne warfare. More generally, however, students of maritime history will find it an invaluable example of how the study of the sea can be enriched by bringing into focus its wider political context.